Your car’s bedroom is bigger than yours

If you live in an American city, chances are your bedroom is smaller than your car’s. Sound strange? Mandatory off-street parking quotas for apartment and condo buildings not only require the space your car sits in — they require aisles so your car can get in and out of the space. That adds up. One space eats up about 325 square feet.

These requirements written into local land-use laws have pernicious effects. At multifamily buildings, localities require developers to construct off-street parking spaces for each apartment or condominium. Many cities also require a side order of visitor parking. The requirements vary with unit size and sometimes with city zone, and they are rife with exemptions, exceptions, and complexities.